Olympic medalist Sue Blinks’ achievements on the international dressage scene for the United States have been honored with the USEF Gold Medal of Distinction. Blinks and 16 other top U.S. dressage riders were the first to receive this new award.

Blinks, who lives in San Diego, CA, and rides for Leatherdale Farms, was presented with the USEF Gold Medal of Distinction on Saturday, June 14, 2014, at the USET Foundation Headquarters in Gladstone, NJ. The presentation took place during the U.S. Dressage Festival of Champions presented by The Dutta Corp.

Athletes who meet the criteria for this prestigious honor are presented with a custom-designed gold pin, and active competitors are encouraged to wear the pin on their shadbelly coats when in the show arena.

Joining Blinks in the inaugural group of honorees were Charlotte Bredahl-Baker, Robert Dover, Michelle Gibson, Hilda Gurney, Carol Lavell, Edith Master, Debbie McDonald, Dorothy Morkis, Leslie Morse, Steffen Peters, Michael Poulin, Kathleen Raine, Gary Rockwell, Guenter Seidel, Christine Traurig, and Lisa Wilcox. They were all recognized for earning team or individual medals or having accumulated multiple top placings, both in the U.S. and abroad.

A veteran competitor on the U.S. Dressage Team, Blinks has helped secure team medals at both the Olympic Games and FEI World Equestrian Games. She and Flim Flam anchored the bronze medal winning team and finished eighth individually at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Two years prior, Blinks contributed to a fourth place finish for the U.S. team at the 1998 FEI World Equestrian Games in Rome, Italy, and she returned in 2002 to take ninth individually and help the U.S. claim the silver medal at the FEI World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain. Blinks has twice been named the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Dressage Female Athlete of the Year.